As reported earlier in ANS, the JAWSAT launch (with amateur radio's newest satellites)
has been postponed until early 2000. This delayed launch timeframe allows ANS to take a
detailed look at each of the new birds. Last week ANS looked at OPAL, the Orbiting Picosat
Automatic Launcher. OPAL will be part of the JAWSAT multi-payload adapter space-frame
during launch. Following deployment, OPAL will in turn eject three small satellites, one
of which will be STENSAT.

STENSAT is a small (12 cubic inch, 8.2 ounce) satellite, which is intended for use
by amateur radio operators worldwide and will operate as a single channel, Mode-J, FM
voice transponder (much like AO-27).

STENSAT will use an VHF uplink frequency of 145.840 MHz and a UHF downlink on
436.625 MHz. The satellite will periodically use 1200 baud packet for sending
telemetry. Additionally, ham operators will be able to 'ping' the satellite by
transmitting a six digit DTMF command string to the receiver uplink.

As ANS previously reported, if you are wondering how to welcome the new millennium --
Ray, W2RS, has the answer, straight key night on the active OSCAR satellites!

Ray invites satellite operators to participate in the 28th annual Y2K edition of
Straight Key Night on OSCAR, sponsored by AMSAT-NA. The event is open to all radio
amateurs worldwide.

As always, there are no rules, no scoring and no need to send in a log at the end of
the event. W2RS tells ANS that SKN is simple - all operators need to do is operate using
the continuous wave (CW) mode of transmission (with a hand key!) on any OSCAR satellite,
or the moon (OSCAR-Zero), between 00:00 and 23:59 UTC on 1-January-2000.

All participants are encouraged to nominate the operator with the best fist among those
they heard or worked.

The Hubble repair mission, STS-103, is well underway as this edition of ANS is being
prepared. After a flawless launch, Discovery and its seven astronauts successfully
completed a two-day chase to catch up to and retrieve Hubble, closing on the telescope at
a rate of about 340 nautical miles with each orbit of Earth.

As ground controllers at Goddard Space Flight Center placed the space telescope in an
attitude with its closed aperture pointed toward Earth, Commander Curt Brown guided
Discovery through an approach from below Hubble. Mission Specialist Jean-Francois Clervoy
followed this maneuver by reaching out with the shuttle's robotic arm to grip Hubble
itself. The successful 'grapple' was made about 24 hours after Discovery's launch
from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The first of three planned space walks to repair and upgrade Hubble equipment took
place on Wednesday. Mission Specialist and Payload Commander Steve Smith and Mission
Specialist John Grunsfeld first replaced the telescope's three Rate Sensor Units. Each
contains two gyroscopes. The second major task completed was the installation of six
Voltage/Temperature improvement kits between Hubble's solar panels and its six 10-year-old
batteries. As Discovery astronauts completed these high priority tasks, they also
completed the second longest spacewalk in history at 8 hours, 15 minutes.

Major tasks on Thursday's space walk by Michael Foale and Claude Nicollier included
replacement of Hubble's outmoded DF-224 computer with a more modern unit 20 times
faster and with six times the memory. They also replaced one of Hubble's three fine
guidance sensors, used to precisely point the telescope and gather scientific data.

Discovery remains in excellent condition, in an orbit with a high point of
380 statute miles and a low point of 369 miles. The mission is on target for a
December 27th return landing.

Stacey, W4SM, is wondering if satellite operators are ready to move to 38k4 downlinks,
noting that "at least two of the current satellites in orbit, TO-31 and UO-36 have
this capability. P3D's RUDAK has multiple high speed modems and is likely to be very
active at 38k4, as well." W4SM and others have been working with G7UPN to tweak WiSP
to function best with these new satellites.-AMSAT-BB

NASA and Boeing recently announced a modification to the existing contract for the
International Space Station that will focus the remaining contract work on the upcoming
assembly and early operations tasks for the orbiting complex. The contract modification
completes a number of planned improvements to the existing contract.-NASA

Dave, WB6LLO, has operating information for both RS-15 and RS-13 on his personal web
site. In addition to satellite data, antenna information for mode A operation is also
featured. The WB6LLO web site URL is http://home.san.rr.com/doguimont/uploads

AO-27 uses a method called Timed Eclipse Power Regulation (TEPR) to regulate the
on-board batteries. In simple terms, TEPR times how long the satellite has been in the
eclipse (or in the sun) and decides what subsystems to turn on or off. The AO-27 pages on
the AMSAT-NA web site include an explanation of AO-27 operations at http://www.amsat.org/amsat/sats/n7hpr/ao27.html

JAS-2 was successfully launched on August 17, 1996, by an H-II launch vehicle from
the Tanegashima Space Center.

Mike, KF4FDJ, has put together a very informative document on FO-29, addressing analog,
digital and digi-talker modes. To obtain a copy e-mail Mike at kf4fdj@amsat.org

Kazu, JJ1WTK, reports the FO-29 operational schedule (announced by the JARL) is as
follows:

through January 11th

JA

Mineo, JE9PEL, has updated his FO-29 satellite telemetry analysis program. The software
will automatically analyze all digital telemetry from the satellite such as current,
voltage and temperature. The JE9PEL FO-29/software update is available at http://www.ne.jp/asahi/hamradio/je9pel/

Russ Platt, WJ9F, of the AO-16 Command Team tells ANS "it appears that after 1900
plus days of operating -- AO-16 suffered a problem that returned it to safe mode."
WJ9F has been able to turn the 70-cm transmitter back on. AO-16 is in MBL (Microsat Boot
Loader) mode and ground teams are checking the on-board memory to find the cause of this
problem. Stay tuned to ANS for further updates.

Chris, G7UPN, recently reloaded TO-31 with the new flight software to fix a few minor
Y2K issues. TO-31 users may also note that many of the high resolution color images on
TMSAT are now compressed using a UoSAT compression format. This format is supported by the
VK5HI CCD display program.

Uplink/downlink frequencies have not been established.
The satellite is not currently available for uplink transmissions.

PANSAT, developed by the Naval Postgraduate School, was launched from the shuttle
Discovery. PANSAT spread-spectrum digital transponders will be available to amateur radio
operators in the near future along with software to utilize this technology.

Dan Sakoda, KD6DRA, PANSAT Project Manager recommends 'The ARRL Spread Spectrum
Sourcebook' as a good place to start in understanding the spread-spectrum scheme.

Semi-operational. SunSat has been in mode-B using an uplink of 436.291 MHz (+/-
Doppler) and a 145.825 MHz downlink.

SunSat was launched February 23, 1999 aboard a Delta II rocket from
Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. SunSat stands for Stellenbosch University
Satellite and takes it name from the South African university whose students constructed
the payload.

The SunSat package includes 1200 and 9600 baud digital store-and-forward
capability and a voice 'parrot' repeater system that will be used primarily for
educational demonstrations. The satellite has two VHF and two UHF transmit-receive
systems.

The SunSat schedule is as follows (supplied by Henry Chamberlain, ZS1AAZ):

UoSAT-12 was successfully launched on April 21, 1999 from the Russian Baikonur
Cosmodrome. UO-36 carries a number of imaging payloads, digital store-and-forward
communications and mode L/S transponders.

The satellite is not currently available for general uplink transmissions.

S-band high speed downlink commissioning continues at rates between 128kb/s and 1Mb/s.
The S-band downlink frequency has not been announced.

UO-36 has been transmitting 9600-baud FSK telemetry framed in a VLSI format using a
downlink frequency of 437.400 MHz. Chris, G7UPN, reports UO-36 is also (at times)
testing on 437.025 MHz at a baud rate of 38,400 (38k4). Currently, this downlink
is switched on over Europe. Due to the limited power on UO-36, it is not possible to have
this downlink on permanently over all areas.

Updated status. Shlomo, 4X1AS, tells ANS that efforts are underway to bring GO-32 on
line. According to Dr. Fred Ortenberg of the Asher Space Research Institute in Haifa,
"the TechSat control team is about to finish its Amateur Radio BBS package tests. The
next stage is to add beacon messages about the satellite's housekeeping status."

Stay tuned to ANS for further information.

The TechSat-1B micro-satellite was successfully launched from the Russian Baikonur
Cosmodrome on July 10, 1998.

Last reported, the satellite does not have a continuous beacon, but does transmit a
9600-baud burst every 30 seconds (for about 3 seconds in length), currently on
435.225 MHz.

The TechSat team has constructed a home page about TechSat. To view the site, point
your web browser to:

The following satellites are in orbit but are non-operational at this time:

ANS has learned (from HL0ENJ) that satellite downlink telemetry shows two of KO-23's
battery cells to be very unstable. Jim, AA7KC, reports KO-23 is not operational. Stay
tuned to ANS for further developments.

Ham radio activity aboard the Mir space station came to a close on August 28, 1999
as the crew returned to Earth, leaving the station unmanned. Mir is in a stable orbit with
only essential systems running. All amateur radio activities have ceased. Currently, the
station is being prepared for re-entry sometime in the first quarter of 2000. However, the
final fate of the space station has not been formally announced. Stay tuned to ANS for
further developments.